180 O' Fun

[Mr T-reefer]

Hello everyone, my name is Tristan and I'm currently in the San Francisco Bay Area. I'm going to give you a quick background about my marine keeping experience first before I start the tank related stuff, so feel free to scroll down if you don't care :bigeyes:.

I started a 80 gallon reef tank back in May of 2008. I managed to get all of my husbandry information from books and occasionally from online. I never even knew clubs, let alone online clubs like this one even existed, I thought marine/reef keeping was rare and mostly something you would only find at public aquariums and Drs offices. I was told by a local marine vendor to join the local club (NorCal Reef Club) (this was after my nitrate issue described below), and then after that along with finding this site I realized how big reef keeping really was, sort of a relief in a way really from all the information available.

Well anyways, I had planned on having one dwarf lion in the tank and that was it, but my cousin unfortuantely decided to help by bringing me fish, lots of them-mostly damsels I might add (I learned the hard way about how annoying those things can be). He thought you could add just as many fish to a tank as you would find on the reef, you know, the giant schools of hundreds of fish. I didn't have hundreds, but I had 35 fish among other things.

I told him I couldn't take anymore, but since he bought them at Petco, they couldn't be returned. The first batch he brought over also included a snowflake eel. So over the course of about 6 to 9 months, my nitrates shot up (I think the highest level was 150ppm!). I did water changes, but they were just not enough. I also couldn't add a refugium since there wasn't any room below, or near the tank to put one. The stand was too small inside to put one. So my tank had chaeto balls here and there to try and essentially have an in tank refugium.

I wasn't using RO/DI water because from what I read both online and especially in the small library of books I have, there was very little emphasis on having a RO unit, and so I thought that those things were only for the more hardcore reef keeper (I have one now though).

Well since I was using tap water for top off and water changes, although my nitrates went down over the course over 4-5 large water changes, PO4 was being introduced in large quantities of which I didn't figure out till several months later when the hair algae began to show up :hmm3:. I managed to get the hair algae under control after a few months, but byropsis began to spring up and spread like a plague throughout the tank.

After several deperate attempts to get rid of it, and about 8 months later, I said F it. I've been battling one problem after another for almost two years dumping hundreds of dollars into the tank without any success. I always managed to figure out what the problem was and how it came about, but I always found out everything after the point of no return, and it took months to fix each problem.

Some stuff was bad luck though, such as STN sweeping through the tank killing the few SPS's I had because it ended up that I bought a LPS that was actually doing poorly even though it looked perfectly healthy and was fully extended. At that time my water quality was great save for the 0.5 ppm of PO4.

So I decided late last year to shut it down and go with my orignial plan of keeping lionfish. Since then I have a variety of snails and few frags worth of pom pom xenia that I plan to transfer to the 180 once it is ready to go, I also have a few fish to help keep the snails alive and for there to be something in the 80 gallon to look at in the mean time, but the fish will be traded in once the 180 is ready for stocking (they will be eaten by the lions otherwise).

Because I wanted to do Volitans rather than dwarf species of lionfish, I had to make some changes to my current tank (if I am going to have a large tank with just a fish or two, I might as well make them large fish rather than two small ones, right?). But with my 80gal being 60x16x20" LxWxH, it isn't quite wide enough for a volitan (18+" width needed), so I got the 180 (6'x2'x2') I have now for them.

I have planned to make this a predator tank consisting of two Volitan lionfish, and a large invert that has yet to be determined. Some other stuff will be present too such as snails, brittlstar(s) and the pom pom xenia I have currently in my 80gal. Although I must admit, I do have coral withdraws :fun4:, so although the plan is to make this a predator(ish) tank, we will have to see how long I am able to resist from making this into a reef tank .

I would have added my snowflake eel of which was 19" long at the time when I got rid of him, but it never came out anymore even during feeding time (but it still ate a while later after the food had been added and was healthy). And I was worried that there would be competition between it and the lions for food where one animal was well fed and the other was starving, the guys at Wet Web Media seemed to agree.

I joined Reef Central a while ago, but I always read through the threads, I didn't post any comments, but it probably wouldn't have mattered anyways since most of the stuff I was reading through was posted anywhere from one to six years ago . With my local club starting to fill up more with everyday chatter and less and less reef keeping oriented stuff plus the site has been doing down more and more often, I'm going to leave it and just stick around here instead. I didn't join a reef club to talk about the scores of the latest game.

Oye [in a british accent], well since your eyes probably hurt now, I'll stop here and start the actual tank thread in my next post, later.

 

[Mr T-reefer]

I was too tired last night to start the actual tank stuff, so I'll put up some of the stuff today.

When I first got it, I had to put it in my backyard until I moved some furniture around first so that it could go into the house.

**NOTE: the dates on all pics are accurate**

Inside from one end to the other:

Right corner overflow:

Left corner overflow:

Inside the hood:

Top of tank:

Lights:

Inside the stand:

 

[Mr T-reefer]

Pipes on the back from the back wall bulheads:

This is when the tank was still in the design phase. Here is a fairly reasonable to-scale sketch of what I'm doing in terms of the filtration. I have not designed the return pipe yet though, and want to use the two inner pipes of each overflow for it.

Remember, this is the first draft that is not complete; I have other designs that work in conjunction with this one for it to make sense, but this should start you off to show you what general direction I'm going in.

Later on this became my final design of how my tank will be setup except for the plenum part, I decided to just do a 2" sand bed instead.

I have a quick, small top view on this one of the refugiums under the FTS sketch (I know it's small).

This is when I finally got to do some real work on the tank....or at least that was what I hoped for. After about and hour and a half, we realized (my dad and I) that this project is going to be harder than we thought.

Here is the cracked floor board

Here is the bowed tank board:

We tried to prop the tank board up some using a jack underneath, but it didn't work and only caused the floor board to crack apart even further than it was already. It was originally 1.5" from the straight piece on top before the jack was even used. After looking at how the tank was put together, we saw that to replace both boards, we would have to pretty much take the entire stand apart. So in the end, we decided to build a completely new stand using steel as the frame for both where the tank will sit and the area below where the refugiums would be at. We then used the boards from the original stand to make a "shell" around the new steel stand to hide the metal and everything that would be inside. We also used boards for in-between the tanks and steel supports to spread out the weight.

Doing it this way definitely took longer, but the new stand was definitely much stronger than the original one. Let's put it this way, the old stand is so weak and VERY poorly supported....It's scary! I don't see how it held all the water in the first place from the woman I got it from.

The storms during this time halted pretty much any progress that could be made for a while, so here was the current state of things at that time.

The primary material used to build the frame: Unistrut/Superstrut

This is what I used to hold the stuff together. By the time I remembered to take a picture I had run out of lock-washers to include in the picture.

Side frame that will be at each end of the stand

 

[Mr T-reefer]

A corner of the side frame before the long horizontal pieces are in place

Stand beginning to take shape

Finished stand

Corner of finished stand

The corner connectors along the length of the frame

Stand with refugium planks before they were cut to shape. Note you can see the boards that will go on top of the stand in the background

Original stand being cleaned out

Original stand being cut up part 1

Part 2

Part 3

 

[Mr T-reefer]

Frame of old stand being fitted to new stand. The wood frame will be raised to create a lip about 1" above the top steel bars and a kickboard will be below so that there isn't a large opening at the bottom of the stand near the floor. You can see the gap currently above the wood frame since it has not been mounted yet to the correct height.

The wall where the tank is going to go

Stand added to the room

Back board in place

Midway construction picture

Refugium boards

Top view of stand before the tank boards were in place

Front 'shell' placed in front to get it out of the weather

Drawing out the spots to drill holes for the overflow pipes

Double checking evrything for the busy day-the next day

 

[Mr T-reefer]

Inside stand from the side before it was completed

Kickboards that will cover the gaps around the bottom portions of the stand drying

Inside of hood before it was painted

Hood opened, from this pic you can see the lighting better

Inside of hood being painted 1

Inside of hood being painted 2

Painted hood 1

Painted hood 2

I'll continue in my next post another day, hopefully this will suffice for now.

 

[Mr T-reefer]

Here is a continuation:

Cutting the holes for the overflow pipes

Overflow pipes I'm talking about

Flipped the tank to check tank board fit

Checking holes for accuracy

Seem to fit

Tank boards put into place

Tank added to the stand

Top half behind tank setup

 

[Mr T-reefer]

Bottom half behind tank setup

Behind the tank-overall

I attached the stand to the studs in the wall. I did not attach the main board on the front of the stand until everything inside the stand was completed, that made it easier to work under the tank and I would also not have to worry about scratching the finish on the main boards either. Because it is top heavy, attaching it won't guarantee it won't fall, but at least it will help prevent some wobble during a quake (I live in California).

Studs marked with blue tape

Outlet hole

Backboards in place

Another view of the backboards

Two of the three refugium boards placed out. The third was currently being used as my surge tank on my 80gal.

Tank moved into the correct position and hood added to the top

This is when I got the refugiums along with all the rest of the plumbing measured, cut, dry fitted, then glued and put into place. I then added the bolts attaching the tank to the wall to prevent swaying in a natural disaster as I had mentioned earlier. I then worked on playing with the return pump and skimmer trying to get them both into a small area positioned in a way I was happy with (this took some time....). Afterwards I did the return plumbing and then moved onto the electrical of which is being completely overhauled......... :| [tired sigh].

First refugium cut and bulkhead in place

 

[Mr T-reefer]

Second refugium drilled and bulkheads in place

Connection between the first and second refugiums

Third refugium ready to go minus the strainer and the equpiment

Third refugium with the strainer in place, but again, before the skimmer and pump are added

Connection between the second and third refugiums

For the next three pics what I did, as I said earlier, is I attached the tank stand to the wall by using bolts and going into the studs to reduce or prevent wobbling during a quake. It goes through the strut, passing through a gap in the backboards and into the studs in the wall. The black parts are rubber cushions which are placed between the stand and wall and between the strut and the head of the bolt (custom made cushioning bolt).

Custom wall bolt from the top

Custom wall bolt somewhat head on

Custom wall bolt going into the wall behind the tank

Under the tank before piping on the left side

Under the tank before piping on the right side

 

[Mr T-reefer]

Measuring out algae scrubber slit in PVC pipe

Slit being cut

Finished slit

Screen used for the algae scrubber

First screen ready to be cut

Algae scrubber screen ready to go

The area that will be exposed to the light is 21.75 long by 14in. tall.

Skimmer and pump squeezed into the third refugiums left hand compartment

Equipment view from the side (return pump in the front)

 

[Mr T-reefer]

Return pump

Completed plumbing on the left side

Completed plumbing on the right side

Cut a notch at the top of the overflow for the return pipe (removed bulkheads temporarily)

Pipes for inside the overflows ready to go (left set goes in left overflow)

Return line going back into the tank at a 45 degree angle (note vinyl tubing was used for a portion of the return piping)

Return coming out of the overflow and into the tank

Return outlet

 

[Mr T-reefer]

I had planned on leaving the lighting that came with the tank in it's place and put the T-5 fixtures I have for my 80gal tank underneath for my refugiums, but then I decided to use my 80gal lighting (8 bulbs) on the main tank just in case I decide to turn it into a reef tank one day and then use the four bulb retrofit kit underneath to light the refugiums.

I originally was going to leave it because I wanted to use two or four blue bulbs on the main tank to create a "deep reef" look, but if I did change it to a reef tank, it would be a pain to switch around the lights, so I decided to do it now rather than later. But I had to build a fixture with the four bulb retrofit kit first for things to work of which I show below:

T-5 lighting in hood before it was removed (a review before going on)

Hood after removing the lighting

Removing unnecessary electrical

Lining up the bulb sockets

Triming the reflector to the necessary length

Testing length with two outer bulbs in place

Showing the cross beams and their attachment method (relector moved out of the way)

Added a third beam to mount the electrical box

Electrical box mounted

Viewing the fixture from the side

 

[Mr T-reefer]

Top of completed fixture

Finished light fixture showing the inside

This is when I pretty much finished everything that needs to be done under the tank. There were still some minor things I needed to do still. These include: creating some acrylic covers for the refugiums to lower the evaportaion rate and to keep stuff from falling in them (such as dust), create a acrylic "wall" to be placed behind the algae scrubber screen (same acrylic as the covers), create a reflector to focus the CFL's light a little better into the third refugium and lastly install a maintainance light somewhere under there to use for when the lights are either off from their timer or to provide some light while the bulbs are being replaced.

To understand what you are looking at a little easier, the electrical is in the background, the plumbing is in the middle ground, and the lighting is in the foreground (when looking at everything from the front). The custom made T-5 fixture I showed earlier is what lights up the first two refugiums (middle and left tanks); although it doesn't look very bright in the pictures, the four 10,000K bulbs that I had on looked like someone put the sun in my room!, I was a bit surprised how bright it was :O. The 120 Watt CFL is what will light up the third refugium, but like I said, I still need to create a custom reflector to focus the light a little better.
Support for the refugium T-5 light fixture installed

CFL fixture installed

Electrical in place (right side)

Electrical in place (middle and left side)

Yes, the long powerstrip is angled. I couldn't get it at any height to be put up straight , so the funky angle will have to suffice until I find a better way to mount it where I can still access relatively easily, or if I find a different place entirely to put it.

 

[Mr T-reefer]

Ballast installed

Under the tank before wire clean-up and the T-5 fixture is installed

Under-tank systems completed (left side)

Under-tank systems completed (center)

Under-tank systems completed (right side)

Under-tank systems completed (viewing the top half from the left side)

Under-tank systems completed (viewing the top half from the right side)

I added some maintainance lights so that I can still see if the lights are off due to their timers:

Maintainance light in hood

Maintainance light below tank

 

[Mr T-reefer]

Now the Rockwork:

The first pic is my original rock design, the second is my current one. I tried to see how much I can make the actual rock structures look like the designed ones, but you'll learn about that next time I post some stuff.

 

[Mr T-reefer]

:lol: In case you haven't noticed already, I try to make sure there is plenty of pictures when I post something. I always found threads more interesting and much more helpful when there were plenty of pictures involved, so I'm trying to follow that kind of philosophy. But I don't update often, maybe only something like once or twice in a two week period. So sorry to those who like to see updates often because this is not one of those threads.

Anyways, although I am not done with my rock structures yet :sad2:, I am mostly done and have a fair amount of pictures to share with you.

I must warn you that this is not professional work, in fact it's my first time working with cement or concrete other than pouring it into a hole. The more I worked on my structures, the better I got at it (at least in my opinion) and found new techniques, and so you'll see some of my first work a little too wet when I created it.

I wanted to create ledges, small tunnels and mini arches all of which would litter the rock structures, but I found it to be much more difficult than I originally thought it would be, trying to create them was more than a pain. It was also a lot harder than it looked from what I saw throughout the web of what other people did. Perhaps next time I do some thing like this, I will use what I've learned to create much more detailed rock, and use more PVC pipe and eggcrate to help form the details.

Quick rundown: After seeing that I could not create the rock setup I wanted (see previous post), I was originally going to do the rock/pond foam method, but since I never got an answer of how a urchin will fair in such a tank, I decided to use limestone instead (Very old dead coral), but despite the numerous rockeries near me, I couldn't find any who even carried limestone, or at least non-slab marble. So I decided to go with the agrocrete method. I unded up doing three different types of mixes of which I will explain below.



First I wanted to cover the overflow boxes that are in corner, so I created a frame using eggcrate that would act like what rebar does for concrete (but in weaker fashion) for each corner.

Right side overflow cover frame

Front of right side sections

You may notice that the left and center sections here may not seem complete near the bottom, but I simply stopped because that area and probably 6" above there now that I think about it, will be up against the main structure, and so will be hidden anyways.

Right side overflow cover a little closer up

Top of right side sections

Left side overflow cover frame

Left side sectons

I messed up a little here as you can see. The holes on the top of the tank are only so large, and so I needed to make the pieces only up to a certain size so that they could fit (hence multiple pieces).

When I was creating them I was afraid they would harden onto each other if they were too close to each other so I did them seperatly keeping in my the basic shape they needed to be so that they could fit together, but that was a mistake. When I put them together there was a big gap, I managed to salvage it some by adding a piece to the top left of the righthand section.

This will then cause there to look like there is a tall narrow cave between the two pieces since the back of the tank is black when there actually isn't one. What I should have done is create them together as one piece and then cut them into two. I didn't do this because I couldn't find a tool around the house to cut out pieces from each section so that the two sections would be flush with each other.

 

[Mr T-reefer]

Top of left side sections

Back of walls

I did each side a different day, the right side was wet which allowed for a better contact with the eggcrate, and the left side was the use of a mix that was too dry and thus did not get as good of contact with the frame.



When I tried to create the main structure, things didn't work out as well as I had hoped, and so I had to make some compromises. With this, the extended "foot" like section (again, look that the final rock layout in the previous post for guidance) I wanted to be part of the main structure wouldn't work because it would cause everything to be more than the width of the tank (even with the foot being only about 3" long), I tried to make it into a seperate piece to add later, but it wouldn't match up well at the seams between the "foot" and the main structure, so I decided to do a column like I had in my orginal rock layout design instead. But in this one, rather than using an acrylic rod as a sort of spine in the center of the coulmn, I just made a frame out of eggcrate instead since I had plenty of large left over pieces.

Column eggcrate frame

You can see that I made tunnels using PVC pipe (1") and had them at different angles on the horizontal plane. I probably should have added a third tunnel though.

Column front

Column back

There is less concrete on the back from both the fact that it is the back and so won't be seen anyways, and that I also ran out of cement that day!....sorry about the thumb, it was really bright that day and couldn't see the screen very fell.

Base of column

One of the column's tunnels

Under column

Again, you can see that having a first layer of wet mix fills in the holes and grabs onto the eggcrate much better.

I'll put up the main structure pics tomorrow or something, I spent the day typing a research paper and don't want to type anymore....:hmm3:

 

[Mr T-reefer]

I'll explain the rock mixture content at the same time I present the main structure.

 

[nitro4kthompson]

Ok, so you're gonna keep me in suspense now that I'm interested. I hate that. Just kidding. It looks like a really nice build so far. I can't wait until you get water in. Will subscribe and follow along.

 

[Mr T-reefer]

Thanks for the complement. Sorry, I wanted to do it, but I was like ugh, my fingers hurt. I'll post up the rest sometime tonight. I can't wait till I get the water in either, this build is taking a lot longer than I has anticipated.